Raíces: Eladia Blásquez

Fri07Apr2006

Raíces: Eladia Blásquez

17:14 H | Topics: Argentina - Features - History - Music - Raices

Raíces is a VL Friday feature saluting Latino music icons of days gone by.

Tango isn't necessarily the most popular music among Americans in my age group. I think I'm one of the few people I know who realizes that tango isn't just a dance involving a lot of fishnet stockings and sultry gazes. Tango is poetry, and in my opinion is the musical genre that comes closest to being more literature than entertainment. Its lyrics speak of the culture of which it was born -- that of the arrabales of Buenos Aires -- mysterious to the rest of us and beloved by its sons and daughters for their beautiful grimness and for embodying the porteño spirit in a code that only a native son can truly understand.

Tango has had many, many incredible poets -- alas, too many to name. But one that has to come to mind when talking about the spirit of the arrabal; of the poverty that shapes art, the despair that begets the sublime, is Eladia Blásquez.

Do a Google search on Eladia Blásquez and you'll get just a couple hundred results. Do a search for "Corazón al sur" and you'll get over 15,000. That's because the poet herself was opaqued by her art. That particular piece, composed in 1975, has a life of its own and is considered by many to be the quintessential anthem of the arrabal, of Argentina and of South America as a whole:

La geografía de mi barrio llevo en mí,
será por eso que del todo no me fui:
la esquina, el almacén, el piberío
los reconozco... son algo mío...
Ahora sé que la distancia no es real
y me descubro en ese punto cardinal
volviendo a la niñez desde la luz,
teniendo siempre el corazón mirando al Sur...

The song has been recorded time and time again by many other artists, but to get the full effect, you have to hear Eladia sing it.

Born in the southern outskirts of Buenos Aires, in Avellaneda -- a poor but proud town -- in 1931, Eladia became one of the most popular tango lyricists, managing to rise from obscurity and poverty to fame with her compositions. Her origins are what seemed to impact her writing style the most. Eladia said of her exodus from Avellaneda:

"At one point in my life, leaving Avellaneda and getting to Barrio Norte was revenge for me, it kind of gave me a feeling of 'I made it'. And with time I realized that I was wrong. Geography is on the inside."

And it was that geografia interior, that never forgetting where she came from, which seemed to make her lyrics leave such a powerful imprint on the people of Argentina. They expressed dreams of getting out, of leaving the barrio viejo, only to find that your heart keeps going back to that place where you came from.

Of her most popular pieces and the idea of "el sur", Eladia once said:

“'El Sur' isn't just a question of latitude. It's this postponed continent, this oblivion -- we're the backyard of the powerful. But as an author, it's not a matter of north or south. My heart is a compass that has to look in every direction."

Eladia died in 2005 as a result of cancer, but will forever be remembered as one of tango's greatest poets and the embodiment of her city's one-of-a-kind culture.

To read Eladia's lyrics or hear her music, visit TodoTango.com

Resources:
Canal Ciudadano

Eladia's personal website (outdated)

Eladia's ode to Buenos Aires